Memories
by beneaththewater
Summary: Kazutaka… Mommy’s looking for you…" Muraki’s childhood was haunted by her. Light OriyaMuraki One Shot


**Title & Part Number:** Memories (1/1)  
**Author:** Sarrasi  
**Email Address:**  
**Content/Rating:** PG. Just to be safe. Childhood angst? Drama. Symbolism. More drama. Oh, and some very light Oriya/Muraki. Very light.  
**Summary:** "Kazutaka…Mommy's looking for you…" Muraki's childhood was haunted by _her_.  
**Spoiler Warning:** None, really. A line from volume eight of the manga...but that won't give _anything_ away.  
**Distribution:** , #fics  
**Timeline:** The events of the manga only, so the anime rendition of Muraki's past dose not exist in this.

**Author's Notes:** Please R&R! Feedback is greatly appreciated! Also, if anyone is interested in betaing for me, please send an e-mail to the address above.

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Flickering candlelight filtered through the crack between the cabinet doors making the shadows of dead insects there leap to life and dance. Living, crawling things skirted away from the garish display, scrambling over his hands and bare feet, finding purchase in his hair and clothing. Yet, the child barely breathed, barely noticed.

Small hands clenched and unclenched in the dust, stirring it into the already musty suffocating air, the only outward sign of life he would permit until _it_ was gone.

The candlelight dimmed and the dancing slowed. There was a sharp click, then wisps a fresh, cool air pulled the dust into a new strange dance, invisible in the shadows and eerie in the light.

He closed his eyes to shield himself from the sight and covered his ears to ward off the sound of its quiet sobbing. He wished, just once, that the darkness would devour him; save him from the things that light threw into sharp relief.

_She was there now. Standing in front of him, her slight frame silhouetted in the moonlight. So beautiful, so young and frail, barely more than a child herself in the eyes of the outside world; dressed in a gown of elegant white, the slight breeze from the open window caught her long dark hair. She turned and _smiled_, a smile devoid of madness as she opened her arms to embrace him—_

The illusion shattered, like so many fragments of tainted glass and he shivered, pressing closer to the walls of his sanctuary.

_Silent and cold._

He thought, perhaps, she had gone.

"Kazutaka…Mommy's looking for you…" Her voice broke the silence, equally terrifying and empty as the space it filled. It was so much like…

/Go away./

"Come out…"

/Go away!/ The thing out there was not his mother. It was NOT!

"Where are you hiding…My beautiful doll?" It sounded like her, her lilting dreamy voice called to him…Sang to him…

/GO AWAY!/ Screamed for him…

"I've fixed her, Veronica…" It continued heedless of his silent cries, as if it knew he was in the room. He wondered sometimes if it that mattered one way or the other.

"Sensei helped…" She--no--_it_ giggled, as if recalling some secret rendezvous.

"He fixed me too you know…" He wondered if it might just be real. If it might just be her.

There was a rustling of cloth and the light was obscured suddenly. A delicate finger traced the crack between the doors.

He wanted to beat his fists against the walls. He wanted to know if it was her but didn't dare, he didn't want to know if it was something else. Never had his sanctuary felt so much like a prison.

"Mommy's all better now…"

The doors eased open. Kazutaka froze.

The smell of graveyard soil slowly permeated the air, if it rose from her or the bundle in her arms he didn't want to know.

The hand she extended to him now; pale as the dream gown, yet, darkened in places by rot and fresh earth, was accepted with a kind of wordless submission. He looked into the sunken eyes of what could only be his mother's corpse; a doll clutched in her other arm.

An unborn child.

_Veronica…_

He was pulled away from the memory, not by her hand, but by another voice.

"You're obsessed, Muraki, with the flock of mizuko." Oriya chided, obviously restless. There was a quiet rustle of clothing as he crouched in the dirt – it was a shame that he'd tarnish a good kimono like that. Of weather he expected an answering remark or not, he gave no indication.

It was just as well, for the doctor offered no reply, a witty retort dying before it reached his tongue. Instead, he stared up into the depths of space, only broken by small dots of twinkling starlight. Or an illusion of it, Muraki thought, for light continued to travail through space even after its source was extinguished--

_The deceptive warmth of things long vanished…_

--Or, perhaps, became a gaping hole of darkness that, no matter what deceptions surrounded it, only invited more of the same; destroying because it could not bleed, could not heal.

"Come back to me one day ne, Kazutaka?" Warm lips brushed his own and Oriya was gone, leaving nothing but the lingering taste of tobacco and green tea.

_And memories not yet forgotten…_

---End---

Mizuko are aborted children…That line is taken from the manga Volume 8.


End file.
